April 1st, 1830
Yesterday morning at nine o’clock went with Edward Cheney and George Hamilton to Frascati to dine with Henry Fox, who has got a villa there. As soon as we arrived Cheney and I walked over to Grotta Ferrata to see Domenichino’s frescoes. The convent is about a mile and a half off, large, formerly rich, full of monks, and a fortress; also the scene of various miracles performed by St. Nilo, the founder and patron saint; now tenanted by a few beggarly friars, and part of it let to Prince Gagarin, the Russian Minister, as a villa. Domenichino sought and found an asylum there in consequence of some crime he had committed or debt he had incurred; he stayed there two years, and in return for the hospitality of the monks adorned their chapel with (some think) the finest frescoes in the world. They are splendid pictures, and all painted by his own hand.
At dinner we had Hortense, the ex-Queen of Holland, her son, Prince Louis Napoleon, her lady in waiting, Lady Sandwich and her daughter, Cheney, Hamilton, Lord Lovaine, and Fordwich. We dined in the garden, but there was too much wind for a fête champêtre. Hortense is not near so ugly as I expected, very unaffected and gay, and gives herself no royal airs. The only difference between her and anybody else was that, after dinner, when she rose from table, her own servant presented her with a finger-glass and water, which nobody else had. She is called Madame.
We returned by moonlight, and though I did not go into the Coliseum, because the moon was not full enough, it looked fine, and the light shining through the lower arches had a beautiful effect. This morning went a long round of sights—Caesar’s Palace, of which there are no remains but fragments of walls; it really does ‘grovel on earth in indistinct decay.’ Caracalla’s Baths, which are stupendous; the custode showed us a room in which were heaped up bits of marble of all sorts and sizes, fragments of columns and friezes; and he told us that they never excavated without finding something. And Titus’s Baths, less magnificent but equally curious, because they contain the remains of the Golden House of Nero, on which Titus built his Thermæ. The ruins are, in fact, part of the Golden House, for the Thermæ have been altogether destroyed. Then to the Capitol, Forum, Temple of Vesta, Fortuna Virilis, and other places with Morier. The Capitol contains an interesting collection of busts and statues of all the Emperors, most famous characters of ancient Rome and Greece together, with various magnificent objects of art. By dint of repeatedly seeing their effigies, one becomes acquainted with the faces of these worthies. These tastes grow upon one strangely at Rome, and there is a sort of elevation arising from this silent intercourse with the ‘great of old.’
Proud names, who once the reins of empire held,
In arms who triumphed, or in arts excell’d,
Chiefs graced with scars, and prodigal of blood,
Stern patriots who for sacred freedom stood,
Just men by whom impartial laws were given,
And saints who taught, and led the way to heaven.
Tickell.
There has been a wrangle about the Borghese Gardens which the Prince ordered to be shut up; the Government remonstrated, and a correspondence ensued which ended in their being reopened to the public, whom he has no right to exclude. Paul V. gave the Borghese Gardens to his nephew (Aldobrandini) with a condition that they should always be open to the public, which they have been from then till now. They were a part of the Cenci property, which was immense, and confiscated by an enormous piece of injustice.